ON the first day of the season, when the Respect Campaign has been given a relaunch, I was at Ewood Park where Kevin Friend and his assistants were outstanding, as was the game and the conduct of the players.

It was a real shame, then, that this was a low profile game compared to Sky’s tea-time curtain raiser in which some poor refereeing was matched by some appalling player behaviour.

Joey Barton’s insistence on making the headlines for any reason continued.

We all know the sequence of events which culminated with a clear penalty not given, and a ludicrous fall to the floor from a would-be hardman.

His hyopcrisy is beyond belief.

He seemed to believe he had a right to manhandle Gervinho for simulation, which he wasn’t guilty of, then within seconds doing exactly the same thing himself.

Alan Pardew’s post-match comments which tried to justify his player’s behaviour were a joke and the fact that the PFA chairman tried to do the same was even more astonishing.

In a single afternoon these individuals have scuppered the Respect Campaign for the rest of the season.

The whole point of the Respect Campaign is that when a referee does make a poor decision, players, managers and coaches get on with the game and don’t make a song and dance about it.

That’s something which seems to have been completely overlooked last week.